Thursday, December 31, 2015

Michael Hogan writes about lifestyle and entertainment, specializing in pop culture and TV. For the Guardian he rounded up the ten best New Year’s Eves in culture--film, television, and fiction--including:

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

“That’s the problem with being born in New York – you’ve got no New York to run away to.” Banker-turned-novelist Amor Towles’s underrated 2011 debut, inspired by his grandmother’s life, opens at a 1937 New Year’s Eve bash in Greenwich Village (“We started the evening with a plan of stretching three dollars as far as it would go”) and follows the next 12 months in the life of Russian immigrant’s daughter Katey Kontent (real name Katya). This Dorothy Parker-meets-Holly Golightly heroine hangs out in sleazy jazz clubs, sips gin martinis, steals silk stockings from Bendel’s and works at a louche literary magazine, all the while seeking her fortune and true love. It’s like a retro-chic Sex and the City or Downton Abbey on a gap year.

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Rhian Ivory's latest novel is The Boy who Drew the Future. One of her ten favorite novels set in the past and the present, as shared at the Guardian:

Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce

Winner of the Carnegie prize in 1958, Tom’s Midnight Garden has long been regarded as a children’s classic and each time I re-read it I can see why. The story of Tom and Hattie holds such appeal because no matter how much technology has to offer Generation X, nothing can beat the hope and possibility of being able to walk into a garden and step back into the past when the clock strikes 13.

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Ursula K. Le Guin recommended this dystopian novel, and it more than lives up to the hype. Josephine is enduring a job that sees her entering information into The Database, and finds a horrifying world in the bureaucracy that she’s now part of.

* * *

Providence of Fire, Brian Stavely

Brian Staveley blew us away with his debut novel The Emperor’s Blades, and the second installment of his trilogy is even better. Staveley has continued the adventures of Adare, Valyn and Kaden in the aftermath of their father’s assassination and as war looms over Annurian Empire. Most epic fantasies get mired down as their worlds and stories expand with each volume, but Staveley manages to keep his focus on the plight of his characters, which rockets the book to a stunning conclusion.

One of five books of criticism that changed the critic's life, as shared at the Penguin blog:

W. H. Auden, The Dyer’s Hand.

Many of the virtues of Auden’s poetry—the mix of conversational ease and high philosophical seriousness; the naughty wit and unguarded earnestness; the friendliness and unmatched erudition—are on display in this collection of critical writings. There is ample wisdom and much fun to be found in the chapters on Shakespeare, D.H. Lawrence, Robert Frost and Igor Stravinsky, but it’s the first three chapters, devoted to “Reading,” “Writing” and “Making, Knowing, and Judging” that make this book one I return to again and again. Masquerading as a miscellaneous collection of aphorisms and observations, those pages add up to a theory of human thought and behavior, and therefore a guide to life.

Monday, December 28, 2015

Christopher Edge's latest book is The Many Worlds of Albie Bright. At the Guardian he tagged his top ten parallel worlds in fiction, including:

Coraline by Neil Gaiman

In a parallel world, I never bunked off school at the age of fourteen to go to a Neil Gaiman signing in a comic book shop. In that universe I never had that moment of inspiration that made me realise that becoming a writer wasn’t an impossible dream. Maybe in that world I’ve got buttons for eyes, just like the Other Mother in Coraline, who lurks behind a locked door in a sinister parallel world that’s an eerie reflection of Coraline’s own.

Sunday, December 27, 2015

A private detective’s latest case takes him him back to Oklahoma City where he was once the lone survivor of a movie theater robbery. At the same time a woman plots to a trap for the man who is believed to have murdered her sister a month after that robbery. Berney skillfully tells three mystery stories to explore the ideas of survival and loss.

Robin Coste Lewis' debut poetry collection, Voyage of the Sable Venus, won a 2015 National Book Award. One of the poet's six favorite books, as shared at The Week magazine:

Notebook of a Return to the Native Land by Aimé Césaire

This long poem, which shook the French literary world in 1939, examines the ways home is ruptured — or even prevented from existing — by colonialism. And what, the book asks, does that mean? How can one return to a home that was never built?

Saturday, December 26, 2015

Jefferson’s upbringing in 1950s Chicago was almost idyllic. Almost. Home life was cozy enough—her physician father and socialite mother were members of the city’s black bourgeoisie, and she and her sister were well fed, well cared for, pointedly well dressed. But the tensions of the time were inescapable, and with them came personal pressures that eventually sunk Jefferson into depression—yet one more thing she wasn’t “allowed” to have as a black woman. Jefferson uses the long poem format, alternating between poetry and prose, despair and triumph, to tell a story that is as compelling for the reader as it seems cathartic for her.

Friday, December 25, 2015

Ian Williams is a physician, comics artist and writer, based in Brighton, UK. His 2014 graphic novel is The Bad Doctor. One of his ten top uncanny graphic novels, as shared at the Guardian:

Beautiful Darkness by Fabien Vehlmann and Kerascoet (2014)

Cute characters, taking tea, are suddenly surrounded by dripping gore. Ah – turns out they are living inside the body of a dead girl in a forest. They climb out of the skull to find lots of tiny companions, wandering about. Trying to set up a new community to survive in the woods is challenging. They forage for food, build new shelters, and interact with the woodland creatures, sometimes trying to befriend them, sometimes killing and eating them. Nature takes its cruel course, picking off the characters one by one as they start to squabble and kill each other.

Thursday, December 24, 2015

At B & N Reads Ginni Chen tagged eight of the best books to leave for Santa instead of cookies, including:

Being Caribou: Five Months on Foot with the Arctic Herd, by Karsten Heuer

If Santa has ever wondered about the lives of regular, non-flying reindeers (aka as caribou), this book will captivate him. Heuer, a wildlife biologist, and his filmmaker partner spent five months in the wilderness following a caribou herd’s annual 2,800 mile journey. Heuer’s account will change not just how you think about reindeer, but how you think about the North American wild.

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

“Where All Light Tends To Go” by David Joy (Putnam): North Carolina memorist David Joy delivers a thoughtful coming-of-age novel about a young man who believes that he will forever be moribund in Appalachia because of his family’s history of drug abuse and violence. But is he strong enough to leave the mountains when he gets the opportunity?

Don't let the name of this book fool you, The Nymphos of Rocky Flats is ideal for those who love the lack of slut-shaming in Jessica Jones. Felix Gomez went to Iraq a soldier but came back as a vampire. Now a private detective, he's called to investigate a mysterious outbreak of nymphomania in rocky flats, and has to contend with conspiracies, vampire hunters, and a group of women who seem to only want him for his body. Skewering sexual stereotypes, The Nymphos of Rocky Flats is a quirky, funny read.

Monday, December 21, 2015

At the B & N Teen Blog, Jenny Kawecki tagged six top Young Adult reads for Jane Austen fans, including:

Enthusiasm, by Polly Shulman

Julie is used to her best friend’s crazy phases. But when Ashleigh gets hooked on Pride and Prejudice, she decides it’s time to find true love; unfortunately for Julie, this means volunteering for the local all-boys prep school’s play. Before long, they find the perfect specimen for Ashleigh’s quest for love. The only problem? Julie’s pretty sure she’s falling for him, too. With a blend of elements from Emma, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, and a few other Austen-y tidbits, Enthusiasm is perfect for anyone who has ever felt like the side character in their own novel—or one of Austen’s.

Sunday, December 20, 2015

One of the Wall Street Journal's top ten nonfiction books of the year:

The Horse
by Wendy Williams

Horses have an ambiguous status: Some are feral beasts roaming free, some are workers bred for strength or stamina, some are indulged pets. Around 56 million years ago, the “dawn horse” was small and had not yet lost all of its toes except the large central one that is now the hoof. With its rounded back, it scampered rather than ran or galloped. Over tens of millions of years, humans and horses, both highly social animals with an intricate network of friendships and alliances, have evolved side by side to share desires, opinions and habitats. Wendy Williams guides us surely through the science of horses’ evolution and captures the magic of our extraordinary relationship with them.

Matt Haig's newest book, A Boy Called Christmas, is out now in the UK. One of the author's ten top Christmas books, as shared at the Guardian:

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

The book that helped invent Christmas. Or at least, our popular view of it in modern culture. It is a story about transformation, and redemption, and as such set a precedent for so many Christmas stories since. Though a very early Dickens (he wrote it, depressingly, when he was 30) it still feels modern in its concerns about capitalism and poverty and the dehumanising effect of work and the healing power of kindness. I’m re-reading it again this year.

Saturday, December 19, 2015

As a historian, Simon Sebag Montefiore's works include The Romanovs: 1613–1918, Jerusalem: The Biography, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar, and Young Stalin, which was awarded the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography, the Costa Biography Prize (UK), and Le Grand Prix de Biographie Politique (France). His novels include the critically acclaimed Sashenka and One Night in Winter.

One of the author's six favorite books, as shared at The Daily Express:

ADVERTISEMENTS FOR MYSELF by Norman Mailer

Mailer lived the writer’s dream and experienced the great moments of his era and these are his greatest essays covering power, personality and sex. The writing is superb.

At MysteryPeople Scott Montgomery tagged the top five Texas authors of 2015, including:

Dark Places by Reavis Wortham

The latest in The Red River Mystery Series has half the lawmen of Center Springs searching for their teen relation, Pepper,who has run away to be a part of the summer of love in San Francisco, with the other half stuck in town dealing with some deadly killers. Wortham continues to look at the effect the Sixties had on small town life with both suspense and heart.

Friday, December 18, 2015

At io9 Maddie Stone tagged seven great novels that show the real terrifying prospect of climate change, including:

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

Unabashedly dystopian, Paolo Bacigalupi’s award-winning novel about an Earth ravaged by genetic engineering and global warming was the book that convinced me fiction has a role to play in the climate conversation. Set in Thailand several centuries in the future, The Windup Girl follows scientists working for Monsanto-esque calorie corporations as they attempt to steal precious genetic material from a country devastated by GMO diseases. Somehow, nothing about this tragic future comes off heavy-handed or preachy—it’s just a great biopunk thriller with some seriously flawed protagonists. If you haven’t read The Windup Girl, fix that immediately.

Thursday, December 17, 2015

Jeffrey Lent's novel A Slant of Light is a Washington Post Notable Book of 2015. One of the author's top ten books about justice and redemption, as shared at the Guardian:

H Is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

A young woman’s grief over the early, untimely death of her father leads her into a kind of madness, which she copes with by training a goshawk for falconry. The hawk has its own form of lunacy, and Macdonald’s prose seems to allow us into its consciousness. The bird is finally untethered, allowing Macdonald to regain her own place on earth. As I came into the final quarter of this lovely, haunting book, I began to read in very small amounts, not wanting the story to end.

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Jackie Hatton is the author of Flesh and Wires, a post-apocalyptic, post-alien novel that imagines women as the agents of their own destiny. One of five sci-fi books with an Australian perspective she tagged at Tor.com:

Traci Harding—The Ancient Future: The Dark Age

The heroine of this time-traveling alien-culture souls-reincarnating adventure is an Australian woman who finds herself living in the dark ages, yet still with some access to important modern conveniences (like her digital music collection, tampons, and a complete replica of her bedroom at home). The voice of Tory is unequivocally Australian, even if the setting is not. Within days of her arrival back in the dark ages, Tory is working hard to establish women’s rights, temper the violent disposition of the times, and tame a prince or two. She even takes on the most powerful man of dark ages mythology: “Thou art making decisions concerning me without my knowledge … that be not my only beef with thee though, Merlin. I have a list.” The story might not be set in Australia, but the author’s voice rings with the humor and determination of her compatriots. It is also a prime example of the truism that Australians are, to the last woman standing, funny.

Harding’s perspective: Back home we hardly wear any clothes half the year, it be too hot.

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

This is a companion volume to Atkinson’s magnificent 2013 novel Life After Life, a soaring, looping novel about an Englishwoman named Ursula whose life started over every time she died. A God In Ruins (it’s from Emerson: “a man is a god in ruins”) concerns Ursula’s brother Teddy, an RAF pilot who is, statistically at least, immune to death: he survives dozens of bombing runs while those around him perish. Teddy’s traumatic wartime is the engine of this book — the narrative orbits around those years, telling his full life story on either side, touching at times on other members of his family too, but always returning to those thrilling, pounding bombing missions. Compared to the war Teddy’s life is otherwise almost comically uneventful, but Atkinson finds in it fathomless depths of human experience and pathos.

Lindsey Lewis Smithson has her MFA from UC Riverside’s Palm Desert Low Residency MFA. She has served as the Poetry Editor and the Managing Editor for The Coachella Review, in addition to having read for The Pacific Review and The Whistling Fire. At B&N Reads she tagged six essential books that were almost never published, including:

The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank

Anne Frank’s dairy faced unusual hurdles on the road to publication. After her hiding place was discovered, the remnants of her notebooks left behind by the Nazis were kept hidden for years. Eventually her father reclaimed them and worked to bring her voice to light. Under his watchful eye, though, many of the teenage struggles he thought might offend more conservative readers were edited out of the book. A text with fewer edits was later released, giving readers more insight into this vibrant, inspirational young girl.

Monday, December 14, 2015

Laila Lalami's most recent book, The Moor’s Account, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. At the Washington Post she tagged eight books about Muslim life for a nation that knows little about Islam, including:

A Map of Home, by Randa Jarrar (2008)

Nidali, a smart, rebellious girl from Boston, narrates this touching coming-of-age novel by a talented young writer. Nidali moves with her family to Kuwait, then to Egypt and then again to Texas, each move causing her to lose friends and forcing her to reinvent herself to survive. Her family is funny and eccentric, but beneath the jokes lie the pain of domestic abuse and the struggle of overcoming it.

Sunday, December 13, 2015

Full disclosure: If I wasn't forced to read this in university, I'm not sure I would have been able to handle it on my own. However, it's challenging, but rewarding and it's kind of the world's first travel novel. Homer paints the scenes with this delicious, honey-thick language that still sticks to me to this day – I can't see the ocean at night without thinking of Homer's "wine dark seas" or see the pink sky of daybreak without recalling Dawn's "rosy fingers."

Jeff Somers is the author of Lifers, the Avery Cates series from Orbit Books, Chum from Tyrus Books, and We Are Not Good People from Pocket/Gallery. He has published over thirty short stories as well. One of Somers's top five fantasy books with Jewish themes, as shared at the B & N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog:

The Cure, by Sonia Levitin

This brilliant novel pivots on some of the same ideas found in Lois Lowry’s The Giver, but draws a completely different conclusion from them. In the 25th century, Gemm 16884 lives in a world where peace and order are maintained through the consumption of drugs and the elimination of disruptive forces—including art. When Gemm defies society by making music, he is given a choice: execution, or a sort of “virtual reality” experience that will make him a Jew in 14th century Strasbourg at the height of the Black Death, when Jews were widely blamed for the disease and pogroms were common. The idea is that Gemm will see how much better the future is and mend his ways—but what makes the story remarkable is how Levitin’s ending is both exactly as expected, and yet somehow a complete subversion.

Saturday, December 12, 2015

Julie, the 21-year-old American woman working as an antiques restorer in a Parisian shop, is well-mannered, soft-spoken—and living in dread. Her real name is Grace, and she has fled her native Tennessee in the wake of a botched museum robbery that she engineered. Convinced that she is the “bad apple” she was told she was as a child, Grace-Julie is ripe for recruitment into even more dangerous schemes. Rebecca Scherm’s fast-paced first novel, full of suspense and surprise, shows that “empowerment,” as embraced by an on-the-lam bad apple, can provoke some most unexpected thrills.

A fog-shrouded U.S. Army outpost in the remote reaches of Afghanistan is the ominous setting of John Renehan’s combat-ready first novel. Lt. Black (no first name) is sent to this mountainous up-country position on an administrative investigation that soon turns into something much more strange. Surrounded by Taliban and other militia, the outpost’s troops are in the grip of some fatal conspiracy, which he catches glimpses of through the green glare of night-vision goggles and the orange glow of psychedelic lava lamps. This superb debut is at once a battle novel, a puzzling mystery and a psychological mind-bender.

Friday, December 11, 2015

John Boyne's novels include the bestselling The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and The Boy at the Top of the Mountain. One of his top ten unlikely friendships in children’s books, as shared at the Guardian:

The Bunker Diary by Kevin Brooks (2013)

My own favourite YA book of the 21st century, this extraordinary tale of resilience in the face of inexplicable cruelty makes a hero of the young protagonist – Linus Weems – while the adults trapped alongside him in an underground bunker display varying degrees of violence and selfishness. The friendship that Linus forms with Russell, the oldest inmate, avoids any type of Morgan Freeman-type voiceover and is an essential and ultimately tragic part of the story. Ignore the why-must-we-throw-this-filth-at-our-kids brigade; this is contemporary literature at its finest.

Thursday, December 10, 2015

Jeff Somers is the author of Lifers, the Avery Cates series from Orbit Books, Chum from Tyrus Books, and We Are Not Good People from Pocket/Gallery. He has published over thirty short stories as well. One of Somers's five fascinating novels about marriage, as shared at B & N Reads:

Too Far to Go, by John Updike

Updike had a unique style and viewpoint, and the characters in his stories and novels, especially the men, could be very predictable in their attitudes, lusts, and fears. This collection of stories exploring a relationship and marriage from first date to post-divorce kiss is a product of that unique Updike style. From the initial nervousness of meeting someone you simply must know better, to the final exhausted familiarity between two people who know each other so well they can no longer be together, Updike makes every moment along the way interesting and meaningful, rendering this a remarkable book for anyone who has ever been married.

The Den of Inequity/Sanctuary in Ephemera—Anne Bishop’s Sebastian
In Daughter of the Blood, Bishop reverses power between the sexes, and corrupt women become debased and cruel with unlimited power. I was so excited by the novelty of that world, I gave it to a male friend. He gave it back with a wince, only partially read. But in the world of Ephemera, Bishop creates several landscapes in which women and men (and incubi and succubi) take the roles they were born to, without prejudice. I love the equal opportunity darkness and depravity of the Den of Inequity, which is balanced so nicely by the serenity of Sanctuary. Both sides of human nature are shown in this original world. Bishop is a master at exploring sexuality and power between the sexes.

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Jeff Somers is the author of Lifers, the Avery Cates series from Orbit Books, Chum from Tyrus Books, and We Are Not Good People from Pocket/Gallery. He has published over thirty short stories as well. One of Somers's five worst mothers in literary history, as shared at B & N Reads:

Sophie Portnoy from Portnoy’s Complaint, by Philip Roth

If it isn’t a standard belief that mothers should not stand outside the bathroom while their sons defecate and then demand they not flush so their output can be examined, then by gum, it should be. Sophie Portnoy is the sort of mother only novelists and psychiatrists can imagine, a woman so smothering and domineering she’s at the root of all her son’s “complaints”—including the (frequently awful and disturbing) sexual ones, which push her well into Monstrous Mother territory despite the black humor surrounding her every utterance and action in Roth’s infamous novel.

Ryan Britt is the author of Luke Skywalker Can't Read and Other Geeky Truths. One entry on his list of six of the best Scout Finches -- "headstrong, stalwart, and true" young characters -- from science fiction and fantasy, as shared at the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog:

Primrose Everdeen (The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, Mockingjay)

Katniss might seem the obvious choice as the Scout of District 12, but she’s far too cynical even at the start of the first novel to truly attain Scout Finch status. No, it’s fairly obvious Prim is the Scout of this particular dystopia: she’s braver than she lets on, innocent enough to be optimistic, and her quiet tenderheartedness is truly inspiring.

Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Jeff Somers is the author of Lifers, the Avery Cates series from Orbit Books, Chum from Tyrus Books, and We Are Not Good People from Pocket/Gallery. He has published over thirty short stories as well. One of Somers's top seven books that explore the dark side of the Moon, as shared at the B & N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog:

Radiance, by Catherynne M. Valente

The moon doesn’t have to be all gloom and doom. In Valente’s evocative, beguiling slice of sci-fi Victoriana (out in October), it is transformed into a sort of space age Tinseltown, albeit a space age existing in an alternative 1920s in which we’ve gone on a Grand Tour of the solar system in ornate rockets but still haven’t quite mastered synching sound and image or colorizing film. Though the larger story is of revered filmmaker who goes missing on Venus, its scenes on the moon—ruled by warring film studios, its high mineral levels turn its inhabitants’ skin a dusky blue (which happens to photograph quite fetchingly in black and white)—are evocative and deeply memorable…much like the rest of the book.

Monday, December 7, 2015

One title on Melissa Albert's list of top adaptations, as shared at B&N Reads:

The Revenant, by Michael Punke

This adaptation of the amazing semi-true story of fur trapper Hugh Glass will star Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy as two men on either side of a dark vendetta. When Hugh (Dicaprio) suffers terrible injuries in a bear attack, the assumption is that he’ll soon be dead, so the leader of his expedition orders two men to stay with him, and bury him when he dies. The men instead abandon Glass, stealing everything he’d need to survive. And yet Glass does survive, then sets out for revenge. A gripping, tense story anchored by peerless research and rich descriptions of early 19th-century life in the unsettled wilderness of the American Northwest.

Sunday, December 6, 2015

At the Guardian, Charlotte Seager tagged the top five spoiled suppers in literature, including:

Extra helping of workhouse gruel in Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

No list of ruined meals in fiction would be complete without this heartbreaking story. Though a small bowl of gruel could scarcely be called supper, the children’s dinner at the workhouse is certainly spoiled when a small voice addresses the rotund master serving the thin porridge: “Please, sir, I want some more.” Oliver is quickly struck with the ladle and marched to a gentlemen in a white waistcoat, who shrieks: “That boy will be hung … I am never more convinced of anything in my life, than I am that that boy will come to be hung.” Luckily, little Oliver does not hang. He is sold by the parish to an undertaker as an apprentice, and begins his capricious journey across London.

At SheKnows, Phoebe Fox tagged seven books to help you cope with heartbreak, including:

Modern Love by Aziz Ansari

Comedian Ansari’s nonfiction book — roaringly funny and legitimately researched in an enormous worldwide research project with sociologist Eric Klinenberg — is about dating, not dumping, but it’s a perfect read for anyone dreading diving back into the dating pool.

In the wake of the depressing picture of love in the digital age drawn by the Ashley Madison hack and the cataclysmic Vanity Fair Tinder article, Modern Love is both a comic essay on the challenges and indignities of modern dating in the digital age and a sociological treatise on how romance has evolved and continues to change. Ansari concludes it’s not as bleak a picture as we’ve been told. Sure, there’s a mind-spinning complex system of new-tech etiquette about things like how long to wait before returning a text, exactly what to say to strike the right tone (so hard to properly convey in texts!) and the unique kind of crazy that takes over when you can see the text has been read but haven’t heard back so you sit starting at your phone, coming up with all kinds of bizarre doomsday scenarios…

But Ansari’s conclusion is that, while the digital age has radically changed the entire culture of dating and finding a mate, it’s not necessarily for the worse. Our options have expanded — sometimes we have too many choices and, at the core, we’re all still looking for the same thing humans have wanted since Adam and Eve: someone to keep us from being alone in the world. An uproarious, helpful and ultimately hopeful guide to getting back out there.

Saturday, December 5, 2015

Sam Reader is a writer and conventions editor for The Geek Initiative. He also writes literary criticism and reviews at strangelibrary.com. One of his top six historical fantasy novels that don’t skimp on the details, as shared at the B & N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog:

Shades of Milk and Honey, by Mary Robinette Kowal

Mary Robinette Kowal’s The Glamourist Histories are set during England’s Regency period, with a magic system that, in Kowal’s words, “won’t break history.” The magic they use, known as “glamour,” involves weaving “folds” of illusory magic together to create sensations—sights, sounds, smells, and the like—usually at the cost of immense amounts of energy for the user. With this groundwork, Shades of Milk and Honey embarks on a smaller-scale romantic fantasy similar to the works of Jane Austen or the Brontë sisters, but with the “artistic” discipline of glamour added to the list of talents a young women of the Regency should master. Shades is the first of a five-book sequence following the adventures of Jane Ellsworth and her husband, the Glamourist Vincent; the final volume, Of Noble Family, was published earlier this year.

Alison Lester (Australian Children's Laureate, 2012-2013) is one of Australia's most popular and bestselling creators of children's books. One of four books that changed the author, as shared at the Sydney Morning Herald:

A Visit from the Goon Squad
Jennifer Egan

It's the characters and the details of their lives that I love most in books. Jennifer Egan's novel knocked my socks off. I read it in one night then turned back to the start and read it again. The characters' lives were woven together so brilliantly it was like magic and they were so interesting. It made me think about the tiny things we do, sometimes without even realising, that can change people's lives.

Friday, December 4, 2015

It’s unfair to compare Lori Ostlund to Anne Tyler, but Ostlund covers her terrain of rural Minnesota as meaningfully as Tyler does Baltimore, Maryland. And while Ostlund writes about gay and lesbian characters who rarely enter Tyler’s quiet orbit, both authors’ characters worry about boundaries. When middle-aged Aaron leaves Walter after 22 years, all of those ideas become fodder for an episodic and beautifully lifelike story.

When I first acquired this tiny book—a single story by the remarkable Meloy (Liars and Saints), packaged in a handsome 4-inch-tall edition—I almost immediately lost it in the jumble and tumble of books in my house. Occasionally it would peek its nose out just long enough for me to see it out of the corner of my eye, but when I went hunting for it, it was always gone. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it—it gnawed at my memory, making me wonder every day where it could be hiding. Then this week I finally trapped and read this sensitive, disquieting fable of a young mother whose dream house has a surprise in store. Now I’ll never get it out of my head. Luckily I know right where I put it—it’s right over…uh…

Piers Paul Read is the author of works of fiction, reportage, history, biography and journalism. He is best known for Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors published in 1974, but has won a number of literary awards for his novels. His new novel is Scarpia. One of the author's top ten novels about unfaithful wives, as shared at the Guardian:

The Red and the Black (1830) by Stendhal

Julien Sorel’s seduction of Madame de Rênal occupies only the first part of this brilliant novel but it is a link with the time of Tosca. Stendhal, as Henri Beyle, was an officer in the French army occupying Milan. He delighted in the lax morals of the Italians and documented them in his De l’Amour. Julian adulates the exiled Napoleon, and his seduction of the wife of his pompous employer is his revenge for Waterloo.

Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Natasha Carthew's latest book is The Light That Gets Lost. At the Guardian, she tagged her top ten revenge reads, including:

True Grit by Charles Portis

The theme of justice and revenge is explored to great effect in one of my favourite childhood adventure books of all time, True Grit. Young, gritty, female protagonist Mattie Ross fully expects that the local sheriff will bring her father’s murderer to justice. When he refuses to give chase, Mattie must find someone of sufficient true grit who will restore moral balance by doing what’s just and necessary; ultimately it is she who possesses this trait the greatest.

Throughout the course of the adventure in True Grit, the central themes are obtaining justice, revenge, duty, and doing the right thing. No matter what the motivation is for retribution and how it is carried out, Portis shows there is a price to pay for those determined to seek justice: it can change you, kill you, do you in.